A couple of months ago the new staff of Apolyton and us at fastmoves decided to merge. Now finally our common site is online. We´ll be sailing under the flag of Apolyton from now on, trying to do what we´ve done here – additionally provide more services (stay tuned during the next days and weeks!).

You can find us from now on at: http://apolyton.net/

As to the existing Civ4 content here – we´ll move that gradually.

Hope to see everyone visit us at our new home!

this is a post regarding the current situation of fastmoves. During the last weeks we didn´t post any new content. That is due to different circumstances. First there is real life with all its non-civ related shenanigans consuming our precious time. Then there is the reality of Civ5 having been announced next to Civ4 having reached the point where there is pretty much nothing new to be discovered and no challenging scenario left to be tackled.  With the exception of a fun competitive match here or there it´s pretty much Civ5 from now on. Last but definitely not least we are currently working on some big, big plans regarding fastmoves and its future concept. If nothing else news regarding this project will soon be released here. All in all the work has progressed very fast and we are closing in on completing the job…

Regarding further plans we are planning on visiting the Gamescom, the largest Games Exhibition in the World in August later this year, obviously planning on Coverage of Civ5 short before its alleged release date in September this year. Press Accredations for the event have already arrived and high-end video equipment has been secured

For now we´ve updated the library of all articles and posts released on fastmoves – see the post below this one.

Best Wishes and see you soon in a different civ world

Your fastmoves staff

your fastmoves staff

Introductions into Civilization Multiplayer

Introductionary articles for players that are new to Civilization Multiplayer. They contain information on concepts of civilization that are not used in singleplayer but in multiplayer and introduce the common game formats in the multiplayer community.

A summary of the ways civ4 is played in multiplayer

Civilization Multiplayer: city elimination, simultaneous turns and timer

Useful Tools: Civ4Fans, Teamspeak and Hamachi

General Articles on Civilization Multiplayer

The Art of Attacking in Civilization Multiplayer
Extensive Article on how to attack best in Civ Multiplayer explaining underlying principles, the effects of terrain and culture. Shows and explains several strong ways of attacking, like direct hit, fork and culture bomb.

Defending in Civ MP
Counterpart of the article on attacking. Explains the importance of sentry network and culture, gives advice on how to plant your cities to provide good defense, block enemy moves and how to best counter approaching stacks.

Anti-Choke: Dealing with Warriors and Archers in Ancient
Guide on how to defend against units attacking you early in game. Gives detailed information on how to anticipate units coming for you and how to best protect your buildup.

Vision range and its role for offense and defense in civilization multiplayer
Describes the rules of vision range for units, which is very important for building up a sentry network for defense on the one hand and plan sneaky attacks on the other hand.

How to read the Power Graph in Demographics
Lists of power values of important units, average unit values in each era and guide on how to device the amount of enemy army from the demography screen.

Tricks #1: The Culture Bug
Explains the use of the so called culture bug, that allows you to build culture and a unit/building in the same turn. This is a common (and important) part of later era games.

The Art of Boating
Article on efficieny and different ways of attacks via sea (commonly called boating). Gives advice on when boating makes sense and how to do so best.

Putting a Great General to good use
Explains the diffent ways a Great Geneal can be used.

The Happiness Cap
Explanations of the concept of the “happiness cap” and its impact on the game and possible strategy.

Components of Score
Article on how score is calculated, what it can tell you and when and how it effects your strategy.

Ironman/ffa/cton

Traits in ffa and Ironman
About the individual usefulness of traits for ffa and Ironman type games and how you have to adopt your game style to those traits in order to put them to full use.

Maps, Difficulty, Settings – how to adapt
Description of what impact different maps and other options like difficulty have on the game, how you need to adopt your game style to that and what influence that has on how good the different traits and civs are, with a special focus on choice of civ.

Interaction of traits and choice of leader
Article explaining how the traits interact with each other, why certain combinations aren´t good and two good traits dont make a good leader and what combinations can be useful in which situation.

When to attack and NOT attack
Guidelines on what circumstances are necessary for a war to make sense in a Ironman/cton/ffa game with special distinction from duels and teamers.

How To: Space Race

CTON #1: Getting started

CTON #2 Midgame Party

Introductions into later Eras (non ancient start)

Most players only know Civilization games starting in ancient era. However in multiplayer every era is used as starting era, to enjoy all parts civ while keeping games within a reasonable timeframe.
The buildup principles and strategies for later era starts are obviously very different from ancient (especially Renaissance and later). The articles of this category explain the basic buildup principles for their specific era and give an overview of common strategies in order to introduce players into those eras, that are new to them.

Renaissance Start, especially in Multiplayer Teamer

Modern & Future Start, especially in Multiplayer Teamers

Introduction into Industrial

Introduction into Medieval

Series MP Strategies

This series features strategies for actual ingame situations relying on our theoretical raw material in the general articles. The strategies are common or actually not so common ones, that are actually used in exactly that fashion by top players in CCC as well as regular games.

Medi 3v3 – “The Hammer”
Strategy for a massive slow stack attack with a leathal mix of Cho-Ko-Nu, Samurai, Macemen,War Elephants, Pikemen, Catapults and Trebuchets shortly before the opponent reaches Knights in a 3v3 Medieaval Inland Sea Teamer.

Ironman/ffa – “Cav Upgrade Rush”
Strategy for quickly and cheaply killing an techonologically inferior opponent in an Ironman/ffa game with a stack of Cavalry mostly upgraded from Knights.

Ironman/ffa – “The great Modern war”

Strategy for a big conquest war with Infantry/Artillerie/Machine Guns, relying on overwhelming your opponent by superior production and massive force.

Other Strategy Articles

About the Expansive Trait
Math behind and use of the strongest trait in ancient start, noble difficulty.

A Flop5 of Unique Units

A Top7 of Unique Units

National Wonders

National Wonders #1: Flop3

National Wonders #2: Top3

National Wonders #3: Good. Basic. Not Game Breaking
#4: Specific. Key for some scenarios

Series Civics in Focus

Each part explains one branch of the Civics menu. The articles contain the effects and requirements of each Civic, explain in which game formats and in which situations they can be used and give short introductions into how they can be put to their best effect.

I. Government
II. Legal
III. Labor
IV. Economy
V. Religion

Series Good UB – Bad UB

Series on Unique Buildings. Each Part evalutates two to 4 unique buildings, explaining in what situations they can be used and why they are useful there – or otherwise why they are not.

Introductory post of each Part:
There are no just good or just bad buildings
Even though the title suggests different, there are basically no just good or just bad unique buildings (and units). Every UB and UU has to be evaluated in the context of the game settings and overall strategy it´s supposed to be used in. A (fictional) unique unit archer that gets +100% against melee units is useless in an game played on Islands, where you have no (military) contact with your opponents until Astronomy is researched and archers are long obsolete. A unique building is good if it significantly supports a (playable) strategy.

#1 Research Institute, Terrace
#2 Salon, Hippodrome
#3 Mint, Ger
#4 Forum, Baray
#5 Pavilion, Stele, Rathaus, Ikhanda
#6 Assembly Plant, Mausoleum, Hammam, Ball Court
#7 Obelisk, Odeon
#8 Dun, Citadel, Totem Pole
#9 Apothecary, Garden, Dike
#10 Cothon, Trading Post, Feitoria
#11 Madrassa, Sacrificial Altar, Stock Exchange, Seowon, Mall, Ziggurat

The Fastmoves Challenge

Fastmoves multiplayer related edition of the game of the month, with video analysis on the best possible approach afterwards.

#1 Robinson Crusoe´s thirst for knowledge
Video Solution

#2 Montezuma´s Revenge

#3 Smart Ragnar

Video Solution

Quiz Time

#1: Max Production in 10 Turns

Solution

#2 The Eternal City

Solution

#3 Manchester´s Big Brother

Solution

Concept Ideas

Articles on conceptional ideas for Civilization, like new functions for building or guidelines for mapskripting.

#1 Building: Assembly Line

#2 City Commerce and Specialization

#3 Mapdesign for Multiplayer Civ

Fun&co

Single Player Funkiness

4 city Ancient buildup with Shaka

Report on CCC Playoff Match between clans [RUS] and [PPP]

Not Gameplay related Stuff

Civilization Network – a commentary

New Mapscript: fm_Mirror_Inland_Sea1

Echoes from the Civ World

Echos from the Civ World #1

Announcement of Civilization 5

Civilization 5: First info and screenshots

Civilization 5: “1-unit-per-tile” concept

Civilization 5: trailer by 2k.Games

Civilization 5: All known Civ5 Facts

Civilization 5: Video Content

New Civ5 Revelations

The challenge simulates the standard 3-city-buildup as Ragnar of France in a Renaissance Teamer. Goal was to build as many French Muskets as possible within 30 turns while still being able to work 60 beakers in the end.

This time the video is with audio commentary by myself, though unfortunately I am pretty unfriendly, because we had to cut away my introduction. So imagine 11 second being warmly welcomed by a smiling Shizanu.  Same is true for the goodbye at the end . The solution itself was developed together by Jobe and me.

Have fun
Shizanu

P.S. We have a new software now – from next time on the video quality is going to increase significantly.

Sorry for that, but since one cannot win anything here I found it more important to have the “interesting” way forced through this time even if that meant changing a thing or two I forgot in the beginning. This one was pretty complicated in terms of all the stuff one had to take into consideration and I simply didn´t get all the aspects in my mind when I designed the question. I´ll try to be more careful in the future regarding that, but then again those questions are designed to have everyone dwell into civand I hope that worked out …

General

• Expansive leader of Japan
• City planted on plains hill with Coal
• City Size: 20
• Working 14 flat grass Iron and 6 flat plains Iron
• 1 Corn on the map
• Rest of map Iron (Overall 382 Iron, 1 Corn, 1 Coal)
• Mass Media not researched (not make Apo. Palace obsolete)

Happiness

• Globe Theatre: No

Health

Have to combat 25 at pop 20 with Recycling Center build, 20 from population, 3 from coal and 2 from power.

• Expansive: +2
• Granary: +1 (corn)
• Resources: +1 (corn)
• Aqueduct: +2
• Hospital: +3
• Public Transportation: +3 (with Environmentalism)
• Recycling Center
• Environmentalism: +6
• Fresh Water: +2
• Difficulty: +2
• Genetics: +3

Overall: 25 / 25

Food

• Supermarket: +1
• Corporation Cereal Mills: +3 (1 corn)
• 2 from city tile + 6 from plains Iron + 28 from grass Iron

Overall: 40 / pop 20

Production

Bonus Modifiers:

• Shale Plant: +10%
• Forge: +25%
• Factory with power: +75%
• Ironworks with Coal and Iron: +100%
• Bureaucracy: +50%

Overall Bonus Modifiers: +260%

Base Production

• Corporation Mining Inc.: (382 Iron + 1 Coal) x 4 = 1532
• Industrial Park (1 free engineer): +2
• Statue of Liberty (1 free engineer): +2
• City Tiles (all railroaded): (14 Grass Iron 5)+ (6 Plains Iron 6)+ (city plant Hill Coal 3): 109
• Golden Age: +21
• Levee: +21
• Apostolic Palace + Rel. buildings: +4

Overall Base Production: 1691

Overall Production: 1691 + 260% = 6087

P.S. I have a Garden in my city in the screen, because I didn’t initially pick an Expansive leader, but didn´t want to edit the entire map again once I realized I´d be needing one

Overall Production of 6087

Notice the key Corn

Today, we will “continue the game” and take a look at the things that become viable for a succsessful CTON mid game: In the first part, I will focus on meeting your enemies, “knowing” what your enemy is doing or might do, setting up the first cities, grabbing land versus GNP versus wonders, exploring the map and setting up a (first) semi sentry net. The second part includes a tech path review, talks about Units vs Technology and the full sentry net.

The Cricital Phase: Turn 8-15

After you have determined a starting spot and decided on the strategy direction regarding tech path and play style, you will quickly get to “know” your neighbors. Remember what was said in the first part: Cannot Trade Or Negotiate. That means, that all you know about your neighbors is their leader and their civ and possibly what their land looks like. Usually you won’t have an enemy in your land before turn 8-15. While this is just an assumption from different games I’ve played so far, Inland Sea can always give a somewhat weird setup where you end up even closer than that. Having scout or warrior start makes a big difference regarding your own start. While scout start will force you most likely to build a warrior, you will have the chance to carefully scout your own land and your opponents land and ideally meet other civilizations that are beyond your two enemies (remember: left/right or top/bottom -it’s inland sea). Careful scouting means going 1 tile per click so you don’t run into an enemy warrior. Try to keep your scout as long as possible, don’t leave your scout right next to an enemy city. All the information you will gain about your land and the enemies’ land will allow you to adopt a strategy that fits your “neighborhood”. Later on you will be able to “see” which parts of the land an enemy player is using, dispite (!) fog of war. Hover over the resources to see if they are improved. If a tile is unimproved it will tell you: requires farm/mine/pasture. Once the resource is improved the status will change (see screenshots below). Checking it every turn or two gives you an idea where your enemy planted, what war resources he has and what units he might be throwing at you.

The copper is not hooked yet:

Copper hooked, but not roaded:

Copper hooked and roaded:

All this makes scout start quite powerful in that aspect, as it shows you what you “miss” with a warrior start. Yet, most players are looking for a warrior start since it allows you to choke your neighbor to some extend and to delay his buildup. Remember the things we said about exponential growth: The more you delay your neighbor (in terms of making him build units = early hammer loss) the slower his buildup will be compared to yours.

Check out the following situation: I got Alexander of Ethiopia, which means scout start. I’m playing an aggressive start since I’m trying to play my traits (the aggressive trait), getting two quick warriors. Turn 14 I have pretty much all my land scouted and will soon know exactly where my neighbor’s capitals are and where to plant my second city (there was a fish and pig south of what you can see on the screenshot).

Now, once you know who your neighbors are, first thing to do is check whether they have scout or warrior start. Hunting is required for a scout start, so every Civ that has hunting as a starting tech gets a scout start. Try to find out the Civs that have hunting (also useful for teamers), as they might not even threaten you with a warrior. Civs with Hunting as starting technology are the following: Aztec, Celtics, Ethiopia, Germany, Greece, Holy Rome, Khmer, Mongolia, Persia, Russia, Vikings and Zulu. Note them somewhere or try to get used to the idea – it will make your CTONs a bit more predictable and thus easier. Most important: Play accordingly to what you see. If your enemy has warrior start, play as if he would be going for you and sentry up your diagonals. Always remember that knowing what MIGHT come gives you an advantage, because you can build up a lot easier.

This brings us to the next point where I want to talk about the first few cities you build. There are two different kinds of players in general. Those that plant their cities empty and those that plant their cities with lots of units to defend a possible attack. Planting cities empty sounds stupid but can be very powerful (some also call it the city spam) when you have a solid sentry net. That means: there is no tile where the enemy could sneak in or double move one of your cities. If you also focus on growth of your cities you will be able to quickly slave units according to the units you will see with your sentries. Remember: React to what you see. If your enemy comes up with a chariot quite early, you will definitly need 2-3 archers or 1 spear to defend it. Once you have killed his unit, use the units you built to sentry up again and imediately. The less units (enemy and your own) you have in your land in the beginning, the better your buildup will be. What does that mean for your first 2-3 cities? After you scouted your land and teching animal husbandry and bronze working you should know exactly where you want to set up your cities. If you have a good sentry net it is not that important to go for a resource with your first city, unless you don’t think that you can get a third city fast enough to set up your war resource. You might also go for horse first if that is the better spot, but only if you are not getting rushed by chariots yourself, since that will most likely lead to 50/50 situations that you want to avoid early in the game. This requires practice and it’s probably better for a new player to go for a resource right aways as it lowers the risk of getting killed early in the game.

So, resources are one thing, the other important factor is what kind of food you have around. Try to use the best (near) food first as it will help you with a solid start. If you don’t have great food around but copper or horse in your cap, you can also play aggressive in the first few turns and plant your second or third city quite near towards your enemy if you want to steal some of his land. But only if you have superior units, e.g. he doesn’t have a resource at all or you are aggressive and he is not or you have a UU that you can use (impis, jags, skrimishers, bowmen, holkans, quechuas etc.). Generally speaking, you won’t be able to expand forever without building units, since you will either get killed or get massive GNP problems after overexpanding. Try to have at least 2 workers per city for a start so you can improve quickly. Assuming you’re not expansive or imperialistic I would suggest going for 2 workers, a settler and another worker after. Sometimes it can be useful to skip one worker and go worker, settler and units right after if you know you are going to get rushed.

Balancing your Gameplay

Next step is balancing Power, GNP, Culture (Land) and Wonders. Make sure you tech pottery early. I would rarely grab a religion before pottery unless I have gold/silver/gems in my cap or generally superior land that can make up for it. Superior means having several food resources, lots of chops or flood plains. Same goes for wonders: Only build them if you really get something out of it. Don’t rush Stonehenge when you don’t have a resource because you might get choked easily, but try to go for wonders if you are industrious or if you have stone/marble. The earlier you set up and work cottages, the better your GNP will be. The better your GNP early in the game, the lower your power might be. Try to find the right balance. Early GNP will make your expansion a lot slower. Getting cottages too late might ruin your economy. As a first rule of thumb, try to go to 5 or 6 cities and stop expanding for a bit, improve your cities on the run. Always have a worker or two around to improve food resources and another resource or cottage. Once you reach 5-6 cities you let them grow (with granaries!), which means using food resources and cottage tiles. Also try to have at least one or two cities that have a high production for wonders and workers/settlers. Generally speaking, you should never (fully) stop expanding, always try to squeeze in new cities if you can. If that’s not possible anymore, you’ll have to focus on the military aspect of the game.

What can help you determine how well you are doing and whether you should expand or focus on building units are the Demographics which can be accessed with F9. Check them carefully for every category as much as you can and try to keep up with the best. If you’re quite behind in power, stop expanding and slave out some units. If noone really has power, keep expanding and work on your GNP unless you plan on killing someone (Regarding the power graph, check out the article about Reading the Power Graph in Demographics). Additionaly, the Victory Conditions (F8) help you to see how much land of the map you can call your own. You can nicely compare your own land area with others. Land is usually a good indicator to assume who might win the game in the end, in case it is filled up with cities. This only works if Domination Victory is activated. It tells you what your share of the map is in comparison to the leader or the second best player if you are in the lead (assuming you have met everyone on the map). It also gives you an idea what your world population is compared to the leader / second best player. In the late mid-game (30-40 turns left) it usually gives you a good idea if someone is just growing his cities a lot (not much slaving, but high GNP/production) to gain points. Generally speaking, it’s not necessarily a wise strategy to grow your cities a lot because your score will rise pretty fast and you will be top target on the map. That’s why you should have many small cities that you keep with lower population. You can keep slaving them a bit harder until the game reaches the final phase where you start maximizing your growth to gain points quickly.

Always keep in mind that you need your sentry net setup completely. The sooner, the better! No tile should be a possible attack position for your enemy. Always think in “four square” distances, since that is the attack range of mounted units and workers. Remember that later on with Engineering you can get the additonal bonus on moves, which means your enemy might be able to attack you faster than you think, in case you’re not yet thinking in “Engineering-Categories”. Make sure you take that into consideration, especially in the late game.

Mid-Game Tech Tree

Let’s take a look at the Mid-Game Tech Tree. Use the Technology Advisor (F6) to get an overview.

Make sure you plan ahead and don’t get in the situation where you have to make a rushed (and possibly bad) dicision. Your first goal is Monarchy, since it gives you the option to keep your cities happy. This is a very important factor because it allows you to maximize slaving. Now after Monarchy you are basically free to chose, but in the end it will always depend on your situation. Get Construction and Horsebackriding after Monarchy if you have ivory in reach so you can get elephants. Go for Feudalism if you have a huge land area to cover and you feel like you will win anyways just because of your land. In general though, you would be interested in Code of Laws and Civil Service. The first one to get one or two artists for culture bombs and the latter for the 50% gold/hammer boost in your capital. Some players would get currency before they go Civil Service, as it allows you to produce Wealth in your cities, which can speed up your tech or support bigger armies on the attack. At this stage you will soon figure out, that the tech options are quite flexible. Going Literature for Great Library might be nice if you have marble or you are industrious, which also enables going Music for the free Great Artist. But remember, the longer the game goes, the more valuable maximizing your tech rate will be. This means Great Library might become more powerful the longer the game goes, but also Civil Service is the absolute must-have to keep up in tech if your cap is well cottaged. Whatever tech path you chose in the end, always try to focus on military goals first, unless you have superior tech that allows you to go “extra tech paths”, e.g. Aesthetics, Literature, Music, Calender, Drama. You will quickly understand why, because a stack of Maces or Crossbows will kill your axe stack, while Maces and Crossbows don’t do much against a stack of Knights, and so on… Always have in mind that CTONs always have a show-off included, where it matters what units you bring to the fight (“Don’t bring a Sword to a Gunfight” :=) ). Once you are on top of the list, you will be THE target for your enemies. Everyone will try to get you down to earth in the last few turns because everyone wants to rank above you if possible. The earlier you set up for superior units, the more efficient you will scare your enemies and the easier you will defend a possible attack.

Then again, if you feel like you need more land to win, you can use your (hopefully superior) units to eliminate an opponent. We will talk about attacking and eliminating an opponent in the third series of the CTON articles.

Until then, stay tuned and enjoy your CTONs!

Recommended Related Articles

• The CTON #1: Getting Started

Part 1 of the CTON Series – Rules, How to start, and the Basics.

• How To Read the Powergraph in Demographics

All you need to know about the Powergraph and it’s meaning

What is the highest production you can achieve for more than one turn on a theoretical setup with the following rules?

• Map is duel sized (24×16 tiles), e.g. Inland_Sea
• Resources on flood plains are not allowed.
• You can make any tile on the map be whatever you like just it have to be tiles occurring on usual civ maps.
• You can use the entire map = make it be in your cultural borders (just as if you planted it all)
• There is no turn limit: You can have your city build anything you like and you can research any technology you want.
• Only those production modifiers count that apply to every project, so traits for example don´t count.
• Overflow doesn´t count.
• No Slaving.
• Hanging Gardens are banned.
• Settling Great People in the city is banned.
• *UPDATE*: Future Techs are banned. (For future reference in relation to the solution post.)

Think up a theoretical setup (=the land to plant and work) and name what is necessary to achieve maximum production in your city.

Post your solutions as comments.

1. Gamervision Civilization 5 preview from Pax East 2010 Exposition

Gamervision.com was at Pax East 2010 and brought back a preview of what they got presented by Firaxis.

2. Video Interview with Dennis Skirk

Interview with Dennis Skirk revealing some new information on mechanics of Civ 5. Talking among other about how Civ5 is gonna make use of the rock-paper-scissor concept known from previous civ releases.

The two factors deciding how fast you are, are how long you need to research all the necessary techs and how long you need to build the final parts. You build all parts except the second Engine.

First Priority: Corporations

The first thing you do, is grab Corporations. If you don’t get any its very unlikely that you have a chance at victory anyway, except with a huge land advantage. So try to get Mining Inc. and Sid´s Sushi&co. or Cereals (depending on which brings more food/is available. In case of equality take Cereals, because it’s on the way to Superconductors). If someone takes Mining Inc. before you, get Creative Construction. Usually going for Mining Inc. first is the way to go, because the food corporations are usually nearly equal, while the difference between Mining Inc. and Creative Constructions is significant.

Spread your corporations as fast as possible to gain the economic advantage.

To do this, you need a Great Engineer and a Great Merchant, for which you should plan ahead very early. Especially the Great Engineer is very difficult to get, so start working engineers early and save it, even if its going to be idle for a hundred turns.

Civics

Usually your Civics will be:

• Universal Suffrage (possibly Representation with a specialist economy)
• Free Speech
• Emancipation
• Free Market
• Organized Religion (Free Religion if you don’t have any)

Tech Path

I will always name the techs you are heading for, obviously you have to research the pretechs too, but you can do that in the order suggested by Civ. You should already have Democracy, Liberalism, Printing Press, Astronomy, Banking.

1. Steam Power (pretech for Railroads, enables you to build Levees

2. Corporation (before Railroads because it’s a cheap tech for effective overflow usage in case you have to race someone for Mining Inc.)

3.  Railroads (+Combustion if you want Creative Constructions instead of Mining Inc.)

4a. Medicine (if you want Sushi)

4b. Refrigeration (if you want Cereals)

Optionally throw in Radio here, if you have happiness problems and want the wonders.

5. Superconductors (start building Laboratories to speed up tech further)

6. Assembly Line (build Factories and Coal Plants. Unhealth is compensated by Food Corp and health buildings you already researched)

7. Rocketry (build Apollo)

8. Composites (build Casings in 5 cities – don’t block top production city with Casings)

9. Fusion (have your best production city free at that point – start building Engine there.)

10. Genetics (Stasis Chamber)

11. Ecology (Life Support)

The point of this order is to first research everything that speeds things up, then the Space Ship parts in reversed order of costs, so you can start building the expensive parts as early as possible.

Golden Ages

If you still have golden ages available, use them after finishing the Apollo Program to speed up building all the Casings and Thrusters, though you might want to spend some before, to win a close race for the Corporations. In case you have 2 or 3 golden ages available and possibly build Mausoleum of Mausolossos calculate in a way, that your golden ages don’t run longer than researching the last necessary tech and begin using them earlier if necessary.

Production City(s)

For building the final two expensive parts (Engine and Stasis Chamber) as quickly as possible you need to set up a city with Ironworks early. Choose your city with the best base production and build Ironworks in that city as soon as its available. Also eventually build some workshops and farms replacing cottages in that city, though you can delay that, till you reach Fusion.

Another city should be workshopped at that point too to build the other part. Choose this city earlier by its surroundings and pre-build workshops and farms there, so you can finish them all in one turn.

Then you have to calculate which city has to build which part to be most effective, because the Engine is researched earlier but is more expensive. This depends on your tech speed and how much the production of your two cities varies.

The Life Support you research last, usually isn´t the limiting factor, because it’s so cheap. Just make sure you have a third city with good production.

Summary

Yes this is really as simple as it sounds! Found and spread corporations, build the remaining economy buildings, necessary health buildings, factories and coal plants everywhere, then work wealth/research if there is nothing more to do, blow in Golden Ages if you can, tech down the tech path, set up the top production cities for the end and build your Spaceship.

And here is another video showing an Interview with Pete Murray from Firaxis, sadly not embeddable into WordPress.